Stuart Little

A mesmerizing tale of family secrets, a mysterious circus, and a cursed book—The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler blends magic, mystery, and historical fiction beautifully.

Simon Watson lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home, a house perched on the edge of a cliff that is slowly crumbling into the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a travelling carnival and seldom calls. On a day in late June, Simon receives a mysterious book from an antiquarian bookseller; it has been sent to him because it is inscribed with the name Verona Bonn, Simon’s grandmother. The book tells the story of two doomed lovers who were part of a travelling circus more than two hundred years ago. The paper crackles with age as Simon turns the yellowed pages filled with notes and sketches. He is fascinated, yet as he reads Simon becomes increasingly unnerved. Why do so many women in his family drown on 24th July? And could Enola, who has suddenly turned up at home for the first time in years, risk the same terrible fate? As 24th July draws ever closer, Simon must unlock the mysteries of the book, and decode his family history, before it’s too late.

The vicious-looking airCRaft shot aCRoss the sky at near supersonic speed.

It was a modified Hercules cargo plane, known as an MC-130 “Combat Talon,” the delivery vehicle of choice for U.S. Special Forces units.

This Combat Talon stayed high, very high, it was as if it was trying to avoid being seen by radar systems down at sea level. This was unusual, because there was nothing down there—according to the maps, the nearest land in this part of the Pacific was an atoll 500 klicks to the east.

Then the rear loading ramp of the Combat Talon rumbled open and several dozen tiny figures issued out from it in rapid sequence, spreading out into the sky behind the soaring plane.

The forty-strong flock of paratroopers plummeted to earth, men in high-altitude jumpsuits—full-face breathing masks; streamlined black bodysuits. They angled their bodies downward as they fell, so that they flew head-first, their masks pointed into the onrushing wind, becoming human spears, freefalling with serious intent.

It was a classic HALO drop—high-altitude, low-opening. You jumped from 37,000 feet, fell fast and hard, and then stopped dangerously close to the ground, right at your drop zone.

Curiously, however, the forty elite troops falling to earth today fell in identifiable subgroups, ten men to a group, as if they were trying to remain somehow separate.

On a sunny day in Hollywood, a gleaming Rolls-Royce convertible pulls through the gates of the magnificent estate known as The Cottage. The man behind the wheel is Hollywood’s ageless wonder, Cooper Winslow, a star of the silver screen for decades, a man whose allure to women is the stuff of legend. But today Coop Winslow is in for a surprise – he’s broke. With no major roles coming his way, Coop is faced with the heartbreaking prospect of selling his beloved home.

His new tenants, Mark Friedman and Jimmy O’Connor, have problems of their own. Mark’s wife of sixteen years just walked out, and Jimmy recently lost his own wife to a devastating illness. But then Mark’s teenage son and daughter move in – and everything changes. Music blasts from every corner, young starlets stream in and out, a scandal erupts and, unexpectedly, three men who never met are becoming friends… Then The Cottage welcomes a new houseguest with a secret of her own, who will change Coop’s life in unexpected ways.

Amid a glittering backdrop of celebrity and glamour, Danielle Steel digs deeper to tell a story of friendship and love, tragedy and second chances.

One night fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother and young brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, thrown into cattle cars and sent away. They are being deported to Siberia.

An unimaginable and harrowing journey has begun. Lina doesn’t know if she’ll ever see her father or her friends again. But she refuses to give up hope.

Lina hopes for her family.
For her country.
For her future.
For love – first love, with the boy she barely knows but knows she does not want to lose . . .

Will hope keep Lina alive?

Set in 1941, Between Shades of Gray, is an extraordinary and haunting story based on first-hand family accounts and memories